James Vaughan has warned his new Sunderland team-mates they will have to be mentally tough in next season’s Championship.

Having spent the last ten years in the Premier League, the Black Cats’ squad is light on second-tier experience. Manager Simon Grayson has started to try to address that by bringing in Aiden McGeady and Tyias Browning but Vaughan’s 146 Championship appearance put him in a different league in that respect.

Lee Cattermole spoke recently about how Grayson – who has managed Blackpool, Leeds United Huddersfield Town and Preston North End in the division – is trying to teach his squad about their new surroundings. With an extra eight matches, the physical demands are great, but Vaughan believes the biggest jump could be psychological.

“It’s definitely relentless,” he said. “It’s a completely different game with Saturday, Tuesday every week.

“Lads need to be mentally tough and some of the lads we’ve got in there, you can see they really want it. If we all stick together and work hard, we will get there.”

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Vaughan missed a penalty 12 minutes into his debut, a 3-0 pre-season friendly defeat at St Johnstone, but showed plenty on the field to suggest he is up for the battle facing the Black Cats.

The 28-year-old centre-forward was a willing targetman, particularly for goalkeeper Vito Mannone. Sunderland have not had such a player down the middle for some time because that was not Jermain Defoe’s strength and although the likes of Dame N’Doye and more successfully Victor Anichebe were asked to complement him, their reluctance to risk playing two up front meant the big man was often pushed out wide. Under Dick Advocaat and at times under Sam Allardyce, it was Defoe who was wastefully shoved to the margins.

Grayson has switched between 4-2-3-1 and 4-4-2 in pre-season and news that he has shown an interest in Aston Villa’s Ross McCormack suggests the latter formation could be under consideration for some matches next season, whether or not the Glaswegian is part of it.

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Having dropped down to League One for the first time in his career last season to play for Bury, the Premier League’s youngest goalscorer just wants to play in the Championship, and is not concerned by the details.

“I’m not bothered,” he said when asked if he preferred to be a lone striker or one of two. “I just want to be in the team and I’m going to try as hard as I can week in, week out. Hopefully that’s enough to help the team.”